Among the outtakes: At TownHall, John Hawkins explaining to Mississippians that "Thad Cochran isn't conservative enough to be a senator for a state like Mississippi." His argument:
McDaniel is a fire-breathing, Tea Party-friendly conservative who has been endorsed by Sarah Palin, the Tea Party Express, Mark Levin, Laura Ingraham, Freedomworks, the Club for Growth, the Senate Conservatives Fund and Right Wing News (I wrote the endorsement) among many others.Rightbloggers are blaming the black people and the GOP "Establishment," but I have noticed that many of the McDaniel appeals in the runoff were like this: They appealed to people who were really into all the typical wingnut stuff; people for whom names like Mark Levin and Freedomworks would be meaningful; that is, people who had almost certainly already voted for McDaniel. They didn't have a Plan B for expanding their electoral base -- only for keeping it riled up. That's why appealing to new voters worked so well for Cochran.
Can we count on them staying this dumb? I'd say the odds are even.
Despite Hawkins' protestations ("McDaniel is a fire-breathing, Tea Party-friendly conservative who has
ReplyDeletebeen endorsed by Sarah Palin, the Tea Party Express, Mark Levin, Laura
Ingraham, Freedomworks, the Club for Growth, the Senate Conservatives
Fund and Right Wing News (I wrote the endorsement) among many others"), that is not an endorsement for public office. By almost any rational estimation, it's a recommendation for institutionalization.
Imagine... Blah People choosing Thad "I Hate Your Guts" Cochran over Chris "I'll Make Your Lives A Living Hell" McDaniel. They must have remembered how well " http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2008/03/19/rush_the_vote_operation_chaos_meeting_and_exceeding_objworked.
ReplyDeleteWhile I agree with you that it was a dumb strategy it wasn't that dumb. They had a great strategy for winning the primary and it would have worked but for those pesky black people. But I agree that its a lousy plan for winning a general election.
ReplyDeleteCan we count on them staying this dumb?
ReplyDeleteI am trying to think of a right-whinger who is smarter today than he/she was six years ago.
Still trying ...
Still trying ...
Warner Todd Huston is--unwittingly--just too damned funny for words. Hmm, "the Republican Party is merely the 'outer defenses' for the Democrat
ReplyDeleteParty...."
Yes, I've always thought that Jesse Helms and Oliver North and Dick Cheney were simply selflessly protecting Democrats from themselves.
And "Republicans consider traditional Americans an enemy that
needs to be vanquished."
Boy, does "traditional Americans" ever beg for a little defining of terms. Does it mean "members of a five-year-old loose coalition of reactionaries, drawn together by closeted bigotry, resentment and love of guns and secretly manipulated from afar by billionaire robber barons," or does it mean the Sioux and Navajo?
"Thad Cochran isn't conservative enough to be a senator for a state like Mississippi."
ReplyDeleteYet they voted for him, what, how many terms?
They're already veering into dangerous territory, if only because there is no state quite like Mississippi.
ReplyDeleteWe've only just scratched the surface of the criminal enterprise that was (is?) ACORN....
ReplyDeleteHe's an old school Reagan conservative or in modern tea party parlance "a damned commie!"
ReplyDeleteDoesn't the Mississippi state constitution count black votes as 3/5th of a white vote? There may be a state's rights argument here.
ReplyDeleteAt TownHall, John Hawkins explaining to Mississippians
ReplyDeletePlease tell me that he wrote his piece as a listicle.
I'm only interested if he's writing dating tips for Mississipians in list form.
ReplyDeleteA dragon... or an itinerant street performer.
ReplyDelete"Shirley compared 'the Cochran forces and the national Republicans' to cockroaches...."
ReplyDeleteOh, boy, the fun begins. But, truthfully, I've never thought of the Tea Partiers as Hutus and Republicans as Tutsi....
Cochroaches? Kochroaches?? Would it not be irresponsible not to peculate?
ReplyDeleteDon't blame me, I voted for Hiram McDaniels.
ReplyDeleteAnyone spotted any Freedumb Summer buses?
ReplyDeleteExactly. My money is on them staying this dumb in perpetuity.
ReplyDeleteI'll give it a go:
ReplyDelete{Traditional Americans} = {White people \ feminists} ∩ {Christians \ Catholics} ∩ {conservatives \ homosexuals}.
WTF is That?
ReplyDeleteI don't want to mess up the poll with too many options. but shouldn't getting even stupider be considered?
ReplyDeleteCan we count on them staying this dumb?
ReplyDeleteFor fuck's sake, how on Earth could they possibly get smarter?
They've already rejected science, political compromise, any theology other than pre-millenial dispensationalism, all non-crackpot economists, and basic reason. They're gearing up for a run at rejecting reality itself, because they'd rather live in their New Confederacy, where the blacks know their place and it's legal to spit on the fags and the women always know when to smile and hike up their skirt.
They'd rather die than live in reality, as Mark Mayfield demonstrated last week. I wish there was a way to make a joke out of that, but the truth is these people are scared shitless of living in a browner, gayer America. And they're going to get worse before they get better.
YOU AINT FOOLIN ME WITH YER POINTY-HAID GOBBLEDTEEGOOK!
ReplyDelete~
It's a cabaret!
ReplyDeleteIt's a puppet show!
It's a cabaret AND a puppet show!
I think you mean "GOBBLEDTEAGOOK!"
ReplyDeleteNo, he's rather plain.
ReplyDeletethat is not an endorsement for public office.
ReplyDeleteTo HIM, it is. He's talking to all the people that count--people who think just like he does. When you have no interest at all in engaging people outside your echo chamber, it shouldn't be a surprise that you couldn't persuade them to vote for your candidate.
But, I guess it's like that guy in Oklahoma who says his opponent has been replaced by a robot/alien pod person/clone experiment. Reality is utterly malleable when your brain takes on a putty-like consistency.
Bag it, Smurch! He's on a roll!
ReplyDeleteHow many hogs does he have to fuck to be conservative enough?
ReplyDeleteThat's, um, well, kinda apocalyptic. I'm sorta hoping that the batteries on their Hoverounds, sorry, uh, Freedom Scooters won't take a charge well before it comes to that.
ReplyDelete+1 just for 'peculate', a word sorely lacking in today's media.
ReplyDeleteIs it possible that Mississippi could become an even more failed state? They'd have to be in a shooting war for it to get any more miserable.
ReplyDeleteToday's media is in on the grift, so mum's the word.
ReplyDelete~
Point the state in the direction of the PRI and floor it. If God had a problem with one-party rule there would have been something in Leviticus about it.
ReplyDelete"McDaniel joked about how Americans should all illegally immigrate to Mexico in retaliation for the Mexodus."
ReplyDeleteCould this be the new incarnation of Going Galt?
I propose Chris McDaniel and Wayne Allyn Root to go on a test run.
"McDaniel joked about how Americans should all illegally immigrate to Mexico in retaliation for the Mexodus."
ReplyDeleteHa ha. He doesn't remember the Alamo.
I must confess I find Ron White not only funny, but likeable.
ReplyDeleteAny bets they'd all end up in Puerto Vallarta with all the other white people?
ReplyDeleteAnd then complain about how brown all the locals are?
I think it is from Welcome to Nightvale.
ReplyDeleteWhat's equally funny is that the GOPers referenced were ones that reportedly gave money to Cochran's campaign, but were really rooting for McDaniel?
ReplyDeleteHow does that work? "Oh, just fuck that ol' liberal shithead Cochran. Why, I'm so mad, I'll, I'll, I'll... give him some money!"
"when the GOP Establishment stupidly attacked both [Tom] Tancredo and McDaniel for allegedly 'racist' comments, Tancredo always stood his ground. In ignominious contrast, McDaniel ran away from them."
ReplyDeleteYep--they definitely want someone who can call a spade an insulting racial epithet--and then proudly stand behind that! We'v gone from dogwhistle to air-raid siren and beyond. I have no idea what's left to then beyond going back to just using the N-word and getting it over with.
In the comments on McKay's piece is an amazing discussion of destroying the GOP by voting a straight Democratic ticket unless a Tea Partier is the GOP candidate.
ReplyDeleteThe first commenter to put that forward is accused by another of being a Democrat troll, but others (Genius 1, Genius 2) chime in on the plan with enthusiasm.
See, once the Democrats have wiped out the Republicans, the teatards will start their OWN party and abandon the all-powerful Democrats who will miraculously dwindle into a minority party in no time. Says Genius 3:
Corrupt the Dim party from within. They have done it to us, why not? We are smarter, more motivated (at least with the correct motives), but unfortunately, we are not as nefarious nor unscrupulous.
Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah!
Thad Cochran has been in office since 1978, and I can't recall him doing anything historically noteworthy, politically daring, or even amusing during that time. Until this most recent flare-up, I had kinda forgotten he was there. Within the week, he has turned into History's Greatest Monster, a collaborationist traitor, a sinister Elite laughing at the good-hearted Americans crying for justice beneath his ivory tower, a symbol of all that's wrong with the Republican Party, a justifiable cause for open revolt. This has all gone down without, to my knowledge, any references to any political positions, votes, or even soundbites Cochran has produced in, again, 35 years. You'd think they could dig up something (In 1980, Cochran voted for a bill that contained an amendment allowing the children of abused women to receive discounted school lunches! BURN THE WITCH!) But no.
ReplyDeleteThe right-wing can just flick on the hate like a lightswitch, devoid of context, temperance, or reason, because they basically talked each other into believing that Cochran was insufficiently pure for no good reason, without identifying a single policy or even political reason McDaniel would be preferable.
It would be funny to watch if it weren't kind of terrifying. They've got the Two-Minute Hate down pat. Next week it will be some other doddering old houseplant of an incumbent who has suddenly morphed into The Single Greatest Betrayal of the Republican Establishment Who Must Be Destroyed. None of them will even remember the last fight, or wonder why they're having this fight. They are to functional democracy as piranhas are to a cow carcass.
That's the funniest part. They can bluster all they want about the betrayal of the establishment and the will of the people, but mostly they're mad that they got outsmarted, by a guy who had the gall to remember that elections are won by who gets the most votes, and acted accordingly. They've got such a dim view of democracy that they feel that's cheating: once the Spirit of the People is invested in whatever Tea Party yahoo screams the loudest, that's supposed to be it: victory is a given, like manifest destiny. Getting people to actually vote for you and winning that way, well, that's what liberals do.
ReplyDeleteAs we know, the GOP these days is having significant problems winning statewide and federal general elections. Now we find they can't even hold the line in a state where their opponent is allowed to recruit non-crazy people to vote for him. Really, it's enough to make one reconsider just how big the Tea Party 'movement' is, and whether it actually speaks for America. Or at least it would if the Tea Party didn't have the collective IQ of a radish.
ReplyDeleteI don't give a shit about Cochran's political career and I'm no GOP establishment groupie, but I hope more incumbents in open primary states take this route, if only because the funniest thing in politics these days is watching teabaggers throw a tantrum when they don't get what they want.
That's even dumber than it looks at first glance: Tancredo ran for governor as a member of the Constitution Party in 2010 (and admittedly came fairly close to winning), but upon losing switched his affiliation back to Republican because it was, in his words "the only game in town."
ReplyDeleteSo their standard bearer for taking down the establishment is a guy who lost one election on his own and then ran back to the establishment begging forgiveness. Yeah, makes perfect sense.
John Hawkins and people like him overestimating their own influence will never not be funny. "But...I publicly endorsed him! How could that not tip the scales in his favor?! Clearly, shenanigans are afoot.
ReplyDeleteAnd oh yeah, Sarah Palin endorsed him! After Joe Miller, Christine O'Donnell, and Sarah Steelman and now this clown, Palin's endorsement is actually about as close to a kiss of death as it gets in modern-day politics. We already know these guys are shitty thinkers, shitty citizens, and shitty writers, but they're apparently deadset on becoming shitty gamblers too.
An oft-overlooked factor: Cochran cornered McDaniel politically when he came out as having done things to animals.
ReplyDeleteAfter that, the only thing McDaniel could have done to win the election was to state publicly that he'd done things to his sister. Unfortunately, McDaniel's an only child.
The Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas of our generation. Or find one more GOPer willing to make the trip and make it Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.
ReplyDeleteWell, after all the time we liberals have told them to "keep fucking that chicken", it's no wonder someone took it literally. Which, I must say, chickens are ornery enough when you're just trying to collect eggs, so I'm not sure how people partial to their charms get 'er done. Lots of patience and band-aids, I presume.
ReplyDeletePalin is making noises about "going third party." Given her track record, that will no doubt mean endorsing candidates who always lose while raising millions of dollars to "help" these candidates--only to have 97 cents of every dollar raised vanish into "administrative costs." (The remaining three cents goes toward further fundraising.)
ReplyDeleteThe "we are not as nefarious nor unscrupulous" bit was particularly rich after the Sneak Into The Nursing Home To Photograph Batty Mrs. Cochran On Easter caper, yeah.
ReplyDeleteI was surprised when she didn't turn up for the "men's rights" conference in Detroit. Their fund raising appeals seem to peak at $20-30k, though, so I guess they couldn't afford her generous support.
ReplyDeleteThere's no logical way to parse that sentence without assuming that 'nefarious' and 'unscrupulous' are good things.
ReplyDeleteAlso, if you're using 'nefarious' to describe anyone other than a villain in a Zelda game, you need to get a hold of yourself.
"So their standard bearer for taking down the establishment is a guy who lost one election on his own and then ran back to the establishment begging forgiveness"... and lost again.
ReplyDeleteJust bringing that up to date.
Curse of the Gringos - it never ends. ¡Pobre México! ¡Tan lejos de Dios y tan cerca de los Estados Unidos!
ReplyDelete"This has all gone down without, to my knowledge, any references to any political positions, votes, or even soundbites"
ReplyDeleteNope. Plenty of votes that were not sufficiently crazy.
1. Cochran voted to keep the government open.
Cochran voted to raise the debt ceiling - multiple times!
Cochran voted for the Farm Bill - which is 85% Food Stamps.
Cochran was insufficiently opposed to Obamacare. See #1
All crazy issues, but votes nonetheless.
Also, if you're using 'nefarious' to describe anyone other than a villain in a Zelda game, you need to get a hold of yourself
ReplyDeleteIt is a perfectly valid choice of words on International Talk Like a Jack Vance Character Day.
the funniest thing in politics these days is watching teabaggers throw a tantrum when they don't get what they want.
ReplyDeleteIt's all fun and games until somebody refuses to pass a budget or raise a debt ceiling.
It's kinda apocalyptic because these dimbulbs are more than a little apocalyptic themselves. This is what the GOP got infected with when it laid down with the Moral Majority thirty-odd years ago. Fervency has replaced logic. Assertion has replaced argument. Faith has replaced evidence.
ReplyDeleteNow, in a free country you're entitled to whatever ass-whack ideas you care to hold, religious or not. But by placing their primary belief in a theological structure so rickety a child's questions could poke holes in it, they've reduced their metaphysical foundation to the authoritarian ideal of Because I said so.
And as history will remind us over and over again, the path of because I said so inevitably has at its end both shallow graves and twelve-year-old fuckslaves. Because the people who desire those things don't care how they get them.
"America's Tea Party: Making the Metaphorical Literal At Every Opportunity."
ReplyDeleteWhy do you think it's called a "pecker?"
ReplyDeleteWas there ever anything to the Tea Party besides throwing a tantrum over the election of a Democratic President? Especially when those fools in the Democratic Party had nominated a black guy--how did they ever expect anyone to believe he'd won fair and square?
ReplyDeleteI presume that's why they lined up David Barton in advance to get that history revision project rolling.
ReplyDeleteSort of like in Choke when Sam Rockwell warns the blonde pole dancer that blondes are more likely to get cancer and then finds when he returns to the titty bar a few days later that she's dyed her hair brown.
Did it not occur to the hard right players on this board that the people of Mississippi might grok that their state is dirt poor? And that, yeah, regardless of how you feel about federal pork in the abstract, it's one of the few things separating their home from being a smoking crater. Seems to me that was one of the base differences between this primary and the House race that Eric Cantor lost. That was a race determined by relatively well off Virginia conservatives who made themselves a separate enclave to get away from liberal Richmond voters. They could afford to believe that squishy establishment Republicans were the source of their misery. Mississippi has more than its share of people who like Tea Party conservatism from a social policy point of view, but if it were to live up to the hype they'd be fucked. Live and learn Chris.
ReplyDeleteIs. IS. There will always be an ACORN the way there will never be a birth certificate.
ReplyDeleteIn ignominious contrast
ReplyDeleteNow I want my own ignominions.
"...Their last ditch effort to buy another vacuous term in the Senate now completely revolves around turning out Democrat voters. What's worse is that the call targets black Democrat voters" -- gasp! -- '"by directly calling the Tea Party racist."
ReplyDeleteThey can't deliver the punch line if you don't give them the setup.
I dunno, but apparently even Tiamat thinks bow ties are cool.
ReplyDeleteThere have been just enough Tea Party-endorsed goofy fucks who have won that they now believe that they are some sort inexorable electoral force of nature, and that no matter where the race, they are destined to win.
ReplyDeleteWhen they lose, well, that just has to be the result of nefariousness and unscrupulosity. It's delusional, and even funnier, when someone points out that it's delusional, the response is invariably hysteria.
The DSM-V is being rewritten as we speak.
It's so crazy, it has to work!
ReplyDeletethey've reduced their metaphysical foundation to refused to give up the authoritarian ideal of Because I said so.
ReplyDeleteFixed. Because really, this is the same mindset they've had since forever. It is just that once upon a time they had so much power, they didn't have to say a thing. Everyone understood "Because I said so (and I'll beat/kill/institutionalize you if you act up)," was the law.
But as more people say "No thanks," and "No really, fuck off now," to the The Great White All Father, and the GWAFs' usual methods of asserting control (violence and ... violence) are taken away, they've been forced to say and later screech "Do what I say because I told you!" And even having to do that much is to acknowledge they've lost a lot of power. Oh for the days when a meaningful look was enough to set the darkies and women groveling!
(To be clear, I'm referring to the people who haven't been driven out of the conservative movement. Lots of people have left or been pushed out because they don't think Creepy Maid Raping Mommy Beating Kid Whipping Father Knows Best is a good model for governing a nation.
John Hawkins and people like him overestimating their own influence will never not be funny.
ReplyDeleteThere is enough sense-of-entitlement there for everyone. Both for Cochran, who is evidentally unused to the concept of encountering opposition, and ended up providing his primary challenger with most of the latter's publicity; and for Hawkins et al., claiming credit for that publicity, while complaining that it wasn't enough so therefore cheating.
Hawkins has definitely entered Brechtian territory, and is now demanding that the Mississippi electorate be dissolved and replaced with another one more worthy of the candidate they should have chosen.
Dick Dastardly is NOT A ROLE MODEL.
ReplyDeleteI really, really hope this drives a wedge between the 'baggers and the establishment GOP. The Tea Party is the party of paranoia, and they are ripe for falling for a "they're all against us" narrative.
ReplyDeleteany theology other than pre-millenial dispensationalism
ReplyDeleteThat's not completely fair. A non-negligible number of their religious authorities are actually post-millenial dominionists and Christian Reconstructionists. Convincing large swathes of people, supposedly holding the belief they will be teleported away once the world's irreversible decline gets bad enough, to crawl over broken glass to seize temporal power and impose Christian sharia takes a little finessing.
Mississippi Derping
ReplyDeleteWhat reptile could resist Tucker Carlson?
ReplyDeleteYou're quite right. Mark Levin is from Philadelphia, Laura Ingraham from Connecticut, and the Tea Party Express from that Andrew Lloyd Webber musical about trains.
ReplyDeleteIs it a car-fucking dragon?
ReplyDeleteAFAF
I'd have liked to use "gooberite Christian triumphalism", but that's a classification that doesn't get much acknowledgement outside of my living room. I dunno what the practical difference between a post-millenial dominionist and a Christian Reconstructionist would be, anyway. Given the chance to construct competing polities the resulting hellholes would be identical to five nines.
ReplyDeleteThe characterization is nuncupatory.
ReplyDeleteSeeing as he cribbed Snidely Whiplash's schtick, I'd have to agree.
ReplyDeleteVayando Galto?
ReplyDeleteAfter Joe Miller, Christine O'Donnell, and Sarah Steelman and now this clown, Palin's endorsement is actually about as close to a kiss of death as it gets in modern-day politics.
ReplyDeleteShe's still got her dance card, though, and a lot of people want to be on it. Outside of complete and utter delusion - which I'm not discounting, only augmenting - I can only see this as a kind of aspirational thing. She can't really help them get elected, but she can ease the way onto the same corny speaking engagement circuit she's on.
Remember way back when TeaBaggers liked to pretend that they were not just the crazy wing of the conservative base, but their own honest-to-God political party? Like, earlier today? At the same time they're complaining that the party that they're not really a part of is resisting their attempts at a hostile takeover.
ReplyDeleteWhat their argument lacks in internal consistency, it more than makes up for in entertainment value.
ReplyDeleteDid it not occur to the hard right players on this board that the people of Mississippi might grok that their state is dirt poor?
ReplyDeleteof course: electing someone as pure as mcdaniel, and so willing to send back that government money would once and for all unleash the power of the market - that is,
this drama is a part of the conservative narrative - as stated numerous times here, it never fails, but can only be failed.
Sheesh, at least wait and see how many of 'em manage the swim across the Mississippi River.
ReplyDeleteHave Chris Rock and Dave Chappelle called them up to say thank you for this never-ending supply of new material?
ReplyDeleteMan got lost in the middle of his own argument and was too proud to ask for directions.
ReplyDeleteErick "Eric" Erickson's article was titled "The Marionettes Remain Uncut"? Is that a saying? What am I missing? Why does he want the marionettes to be gelded?
ReplyDeleteSouthern states have a history of sending representatives to Washington for a long long time for precisely that reason, and in the old days, they'd explicitly make that part of their platform: "Vote me out and you'll lose all the benefits you get from having the most tenured senators in congress." Sleazy and self-serving, maybe, but part of the game when it comes to representative democracy. And there's something to be said for veterans who know how to work the system and use their powers for good; the last few years should have convinced any rational person that 'Washington outsiders' can be just as sleazy and shitty as the worst careerists.
ReplyDeleteEconomically the South was stuck in a rut for a long, long time after the Civil War, which I assume made these benefactors even more necessary--certainly, no one else was going to be looking out for Mississippi's best interests other than its own congressmen, so why not send John Stennis to Washington for 42 years? They've got a little more mojo these days, what with the cheap labor and cheap real estate, but perhaps more importantly, the South is culturally dominant in America today, particularly white America: witness all the dumbfucks with Stars and Bars on their pickups blasting Nashville machine country in places like Wisconsin or Colorado.
So I guess enough voters there have enough swagger to think that they don't need to play the game any more and can just send whatever dumb hooligan they like to Washington and assume the gravy train will keep flowing, even though that's always been a dangerous game to play: congressional office politics are a pit of vipers under the best circumstances, and the reason Southern politicians were able to ride the wave decade after decade and suck up more money and clout than they probably deserved is because they were good at it, literally professionals, and the voters back home were smart enough to realize that. I highly doubt a southern delegation full of Chris McDaniels and Dave Brats will be able to pull it off, and I know that when southern Republicans keep eating each other alive every primary cycle and the benefits of incumbency have all accrued to Democrats by default, Republicans will claim it's all a conspiracy against them, as usual.
Yeah, that's the thing, and Frank has it pretty much down. If McDaniel had won the primary runoff and the general election - pretty much one and the same - he'd eventually have to bend to survive, denying all the while that that's what he was doing. Then after two or three terms some new movement loon would be after his head. We're looking at a revolution that's mastered the art of overthrowing... itself.
ReplyDeleteGiven the chance to construct competing polities the resulting hellholes would be identical to five nines.
ReplyDeleteYeah, it would seem to be the sort of theological division that actually has some substance behind it (unlike, say, the filioque business), yet somehow the heathen need the boot good and hard either way. (On the other hand, if my father were a post-millenialist, he wouldn't be regaling me with "another earthquake somewhere" reports.)
I'd have liked to use "gooberite Christian triumphalism", but that's a classification that doesn't get much acknowledgement outside of my living room.
Consider it adopted in at least one other living room.
My analogy for this is always Algeria after the military coup in the early `90s, after the winning Islamist party strongly hinted that there would be no need for further elections under Sharia law. The military proceeded to set Islamic groups against each other, and the dominant strategy of all the groups was assessing each other in terms of their religious purity. Could they kill other Muslims? The answer invariably was, yes, if those Muslims had been infected by bad ideas, even if they didn't realize they'd been infected by bad ideas.
ReplyDeletePurity drove an immense amount of the infighting, and caused a lot of innocents to be killed--in the name of purity. Eventually, it reached the point that a fundamentalist chicken farmer, with about thirty followers, declared that the only pure Muslims were himself and his followers and that everyone else could be killed.
Deeply felt discussions of purity always seem to lead to inquisitions.
Uncircumcised marionettes? Pretty risque stuff, Erickson.
ReplyDeleteSomeone should alert the anti-circumcisionists to Erick bin Erick article.
ReplyDeleteA comment I made over at the good Roger Ailes' site: The Tea Party has aspects to it that are, um, amusing, and very many
ReplyDeleteinclinations and peccadilloes that are decidedly not amusing. But, I
have to say that all suggestions that the rump far right-wing elements
of the GOP should finally congeal into an honest-to-gawd official
political party standing in opposition to both the Dems and the GOP is
definitely amusing, if only for the look that will produce on the face
of the Human Anagram, Reince Priebus, as he watches a healthy chunk of
the GOP's most reliable voters march out of the Big White Tent and into
the insane asylum.
Most of us as voters wrestle with our
consciences. It would be fun to watch a party full of voters wrestling
with their psychopathologies.
Ayn Rand and the Amazing Technicolour Yawn?
ReplyDeleteIt appears to be a bunch of very patient greyhounds with batman ears stuck on by malicious five year olds.
ReplyDeleteIn ignominious contrast
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like a spell from Defence against the Dark Arts class.
I wanted to go to Albuquerque.
ReplyDeleteMon cher Monsieur Parti du Thé, one eez, I take it, familiar with the philosophie du Msr Mao Zedong? Vive la révolution culturelle! Aussi les frites de la liberté! A bas les aristos! Où est la guillotine?
ReplyDeleteIt's not just Pinocchio's nose that grows, you know.
ReplyDeleteNo. No, you will not lure me into any joke that begins with "Pinocchio's got a woody."
ReplyDeleteNo.
OK, so #1 Lesson in Principled Steadfastness is an opportunist party-swapper. But these nimrods have picked upon an erstwhile vice-presidential candidate -- pillar of the Republican establishment -- to be the Bandit Queen of their insurgency, so anything is possible.
ReplyDeleteMuch as her semi-membership of the Alaskan secessionist party was central to the point of proving her patriotism.
Just watch out for those dentistry-thieving dragons.
ReplyDeletehttp://2.bp.blogspot.com/-UVW6kpuU5u4/UZf3Dbo8tWI/AAAAAAAAMe8/L5WZPYGl0FE/s1600/dragon1.JPG
A Marionette is a diminutive or female John Wayne, I think.
ReplyDeleteDibs on calling them "carpetbloggers".
ReplyDeleteFantods of the Dopera.
ReplyDeleteI was thinking "Bantams of the GOPera," but, yours will do.
ReplyDeleteWell, I think it's more of an accident of history, or at least an accident of Bill Kristol and John McCain being morons, that Palin was ever 'establishment'. 'Bandit queen of the insurgency', or at the least 'carny barker of the resentful', was the role she was born to play.
ReplyDeleteThere is enough sense-of-entitlement there for everyone. Both for
ReplyDeleteCochran, who is evidentally unused to the concept of encountering
opposition, and ended up providing his primary challenger with most of
the latter's publicity
I'll agree Cochran's not used to opposition, but you can't say he's responsible for McDaniel's publicity. He never spoke the name, and allowed as how he didn't know or care much about the Tea Party. When the geniuses from DC media outlets demanded his reaction Cantor's defeat, he mildly said he wasn't paying attention to house races in Virginia.
McDaniel earned his publicity the old-fashioned way: with break-ins and temper tantrums and working the refs.
I just sliced some up for my stir-fry last night. Dee-lish!
ReplyDeleteTed Cruz, closet commie! Film at 11.
ReplyDelete"The Marionettes Remain Uncut" was Jeff Gannon's secret pass code.
ReplyDeleteShe can't really help them get elected, but she can ease the way onto the same corny speaking engagement circuit she's on.
ReplyDeleteThe simpler explanation is the better one here: She can't help them get elected, but they can help HER to stay newsworthy enough to continue to get booked on Fox, continue to rake in speaking fees, etc.
These aren't the ignominions you're looking for. They're too dumb to follow any leader. They're easily distracted by shiny objects and perceived slights. And they whine all the time.
ReplyDeleteIf the GOP is under attack from a virulent claque of their own creation so out there it thinks Haley Barbour is a liberal -- (Haley fucking Barbour!) then I am very freude at their schaden and hope the schadening continues. They wanted a party fueled by talk radio morons and they got one. This is what you end up with when you cultivate the shit stupid to keep the base even shit stupider. (Warner Todd, meet Mr. Hoft.)
ReplyDeleteBravo, Goopers! Well done!
he'd eventually have to bend to survive, denying all the while that that's what he was doing.
ReplyDeleteI gotta disagree on this. Look at all the Teahadists already in Congress, and only one or two of them have bent even slightly on any issue.
They are the True Believers in the cause of destroying the evil federal government. So, they vote NO on everything except defense spending.
Money for roads back in the home district? NO
Money for schools back in the home district? NO
Money for sewers? For clean water? For jobs projects? NO, NO, NO!
And, of course, no money for anything else government does.
These assholes will follow this philosophy right down to its illogical conclusion. Because they KNOW that it's only by getting rid of everything that makes America great that we can make America great once again.
Dave brats voters arent going to be hurting. No one is cutting off virginias moolah.
ReplyDeleteHe tweeted "welcome home Bowe Bergdahl" before he got the updated memo and deleted it.
ReplyDeleteLOL. Gross.
ReplyDeleteUprating for fantods.
ReplyDeleteWe've got a medicated-to-the-gills dog that fits that description pretty well, and you are right. An army of them wouldn't be of any use at all.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me that Thad Cochran is a conservative through and through. He doesn't want to change things; he'd like to keep doing things the same way he has been doing them for the multiple terms in office he's served.
ReplyDeleteThat's a conservative.
Fire-breathing Tea Party types like McDaniel who are endorsed by Sarah Palin, Mark Levin, Laura Ingraham and all are NOT conservative; they are Rightwing Radicals.
I don't think that he has anywhere near the juice to run for the big seat, although he might pull the Palin hustle of talking it up enough to get what amounts to free publicity for his talk show (if he goes back to that) or whatever Fox commentator-style gig he lands.
ReplyDelete"And they're going to get worse before they get better."
ReplyDeleteAnd more to the point, unfortunately, is that they probably have at least one or two more good election cycles left in them, getting by on rage alone.
Well, wasn't one of the reasons given for Cantor's loss is that he didn't spend enough time on what's euphemistically referred to as "constituent services"?
ReplyDeleteAlbuquerque, you say?
ReplyDeleteRight. The basic grift cycle is that she talks up the next election as being Crucial 4 'Merica, and after the rubes donate a chunk of their kids' college funds, she throws some money and attention at various random teabaggers, and touts the occasional successes. It's bragging about never losing any of your own money at roulette when you're covering the board with other people's chips.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I'll never forgive Santa Anna for not trying harder.
ReplyDeleteSee also: Northern Ireland Prods and Cat'licks killing each other based on how they pronounce their "H's"
ReplyDeletehttp://www.economist.com/node/1177442
If I'd known that Wayne Allyn Root was campaigning for McDaniel, I'd have laid money against him. Root is just the kind of perennial two-bit hustler to glom onto an operation like this. He apparently is thinking of running for Senate in Nevada in '16, and I'd put a bet against him for that, but something tells me that he's already ruined the odds by wagering heavily against himself.
ReplyDeleteThey not only have to get what they want, they have to get it in THE RIGHT WAY. If 100,000 Ben Carsons and Allen Wests' had shown up to put McDaniels over the top, the Teabaggers would have been preening over how "Those People" had finally seen the Light.
ReplyDeleteListen to episodes of Welcome to Night Vale
ReplyDeleteLost the link, curses
ReplyDeletehttp://podbay.fm/show/536258179
Yeah. Men's rights is small ball. Palin may be small and petty, but she knows the difference between four zeroes and five.
ReplyDeleteI like this, a lot.
ReplyDeleteI am reminded of the Doonesbury cartoon with the narc and giggling at the thought of a Teahaddist trying to blend in with the "Dims."
ReplyDeleteAlas, I don't think they can spot con men well enough to construct a party that would last very long. Like, three days.
ReplyDeleteI can't blame the con men for working that crowd - you couldn't ask for a better customer base.
Christ, What A Superstar.
ReplyDeleteMen's rights is small ball.
ReplyDeleteQFT
Google "Welcome to Night Vale" and listen to the whole series. Well worth it.
ReplyDeleteWill a sword-wielding blonde be involved?
ReplyDeleteThey've got a lust for grift.
ReplyDeleteGood point. When I was a geologist I had to interact with all sorts of proto-teahaddi, and I was damned good at it even though some political test I just took shows me to be a tumbrel-building liberal socialist. They always assumed I was one of them. I've yet to meet a teahaddi who is capable of passing; their rage at any non-teahaddi opinion gives it away every time.
ReplyDeleteHmm, you've apparently met my father. His creeping senility has upped his Two-Minute Hate skills considerably, thanks to all the Fox and Limbaugh coaching he ingests regularly.
ReplyDeleteYou know, I once worked in a nursing home many decades ago and it was difficult work illuminated by the occasional happy experience. The nursing home workers of the near future will be dealing with a big influx of rage-addled Fox-heads, as if the rage that often accompanies dementia wasn't bad enough...
If there was ever a politician who has obviously farmed out his media strategery to someone else because he barely understands cell phones, it is Thad Cochran. Tweets? Isn't that what the most comely of barnyard fowl do?
ReplyDeleteI've read that Mississippi gets 38% to 47% of its state budget funded via federal dollars. Cut enough of that and even the white folks are gonna feel it. Of course, they'll blame the melanin-enhanced for their change in fortunes.
ReplyDeleteRight wing reactionaries, with authoritarian sauce.
ReplyDeleteA senate run in NV? My crystal ball says the next place he shows up is the Bundy ranch. Maybe he can take over the daily media operations as part of his campaign.
ReplyDeleteMore like Galt! — sort of like Oliver!, only less musical and a lot more preachy.
ReplyDeleteOh, he's talking about circumcision, not castration. Now it makes sen— No, it still doesn't make sense.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was a geologist I had to interact with all sorts of proto-teahaddi, and I was damned good at it
ReplyDeleteYou studiously avoided mentioning the age of any rocks, I presume. Or where oil actually comes from.
Upvoted out of solidarity, not happiness.
ReplyDeleteI agree! Well, I'm pretty sure I'll agree, after I look up 'nuncupatory'...
ReplyDeleteExcept that the Bundy ranch situation could still go Waco, and Root's true profession is anathema to actual confrontation, armed or otherwise; if your three-card monte table isn't collapsed into its briefcase camouflage and you're not halfway down the subway stairs by the time Johnny Law is within half a block of you, you shouldn't even be in the game.
ReplyDeleteIt's a simple explanation, really: When Jesus got done riding a dinosaur, the dinosaur laid down and died. Part of it turned to stone (the bones), and the rest turned to oil. And Jesus, being the best buckaroo of all time, rode all 'em dinosaurs!
ReplyDeleteNot to cast doubt on your camouflage, but provided you look like the sort of person they assume would share their views, which means you don't look like their stereotype of a liberal, they'll accept you as one of the herd.
ReplyDeleteMaybe the Kochs have Moved On.
ReplyDelete"They didn't have a Plan B for expanding their electoral base"
ReplyDeleteForgive me saying this without reading the comments below, but what Plan B? Their plan is to keep them angry enough to buy gold and dried fruit and give money to Tea Party patriots, etc. Elections ARE plan their Plan B. Plan A is to keep on grifting
Part of it turned to stone (the bones), and the rest turned to oil.
ReplyDeleteAnd it all happened very quickly because, as with the fig tree, Jesus cursed the dinosaurs after he rode them for having such uncomfortable backs.
"No, you may not have some more you moocher! I will now sing about why for three straight hours."
ReplyDeleteThe moving Koch writes; and having writ moves on.
ReplyDeleteI don't know, but it would be funnier than hell to find out.
ReplyDeleteFunny, 20 years ago the age of the earth stuff wasn't a cultural signifier like it is now, and I never worked on oil stuff, just groundwater resources. The people who work on drill rigs for either water (small, 2 person rigs) or oil rigs (large, scary, lots of people) tend to be redneck rethugs in general but running heavy equipment where a screw-up can easily kill someone tends to tamp down the crazy. Or at least it used to; I would not be surprised if that hasn't changed since the general need to go past 11 in rhetoric and the all-pervasive nature of hate radio has made any rural setting into teahaddistan.
ReplyDeleteLook, the rumors about Ann Coulter's real sexual identity are just that: rumors.
ReplyDeleteAnd there you have it. The voters are unable to make the connection between taxes, federal spending, and their own wellbeing. All they know is that half their hard-earned tax dollars go to foreign aid, another half goes to them darkies for welfare, another half goes to all them gay artists, and the last half goes to support ACORN. Well, maybe another half goes to keep Obama and wife in fancy clothes and world travel.
ReplyDeleteSo, hell yeah! We'll vote for anyone who promises to eliminate all federal spending except for the military. The saves us anywhere from two and two-and-a-half federal budgets!
Just talking about taking the bark off the end, ya know?
ReplyDeleteI thought you looked familiar! Didn't I used to see you every morning on the corner of 42nd and Fifth?
ReplyDeleteYeah, that's one of my fears: that once they're finally purged like the Salmonella-laced breakfast buffet they, it will be too late.
ReplyDeleteThe people who work on drill rigs for either water (small, 2 person
ReplyDeleterigs) or oil rigs (large, scary, lots of people) tend to be redneck
rethugs in general but running heavy equipment where a screw-up can
easily kill someone tends to tamp down the crazy.
Yeah, I'd expect a little more resistance to the Young Earth Creationism signifier amongst the resource extraction crowd. To paraphrase Ken MacLeod, it's hard to find oil using Flood geology.
McDaniel is a fire-breathingI suspect that Hawkins meant "fire-eating", but his relationship with the English language is fraught.
ReplyDeleteThe GOP Establishment Don't Want You To Know This One Weird Trick For Losing Elections
ReplyDeleteI'm a short blonde female with big boobs, so I suspect some of my camo is of the "wow, hooters!" type. I consider it my cloaking device in those situations.
ReplyDeleteYeah, and even better, ol' Tanc (or Tanchez, as some call him here in the Centennial State) only came in third out of 4 in the Republican primary for governor--behind a possibly corrupt Secretary of State (#2) and a former senatorial candidate (#1) known for his amazing acrobatic ability to say one thing one day (or hour) and the opposite the next.
ReplyDeleteThe first time he gets between Ted Cruz and a camera, he'll be flatter than Loudon Wainwright's skunk.
ReplyDeleteSure. Like Walmart store-brand Imitation Potato Chips.
ReplyDeleteAh yes, the good old shibboleth test.
ReplyDeleteOught to set up a cowpat bingo operation - high stakes as befits Nevada and the free market. Just gotta keep Glenn Beck from dumping rotten peaches in the feed bins.
ReplyDeleteI was referring to the Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove, but now you had to bring a real dragon lady into it.
ReplyDelete"The nursing home workers of the near future will be dealing with a big influx of rage-addled Fox-heads..."
ReplyDeleteAnd now they've got Viagra!
Good call, TGuerrant. You gotta wonder what the thought process was.
ReplyDelete1) He temporarily forgot it was his side who pulled the Nursing Home Caper.
2) He believed that in his movement of outliers the actual perpetrator was a real outlier, so it doesn't count against the movement.
3) False flag!
4) The Caper was actually a noble attempt to expose Cochran's failure as a husband/human being.
I can't see other possibilities, but the only difference among these is how they mix stupid and crazy in different proportions. I guess to his credit those qualities are at least the opposite of nefarious.
And I get a cut of the royalties. No, I have no shame, why do you ask?
ReplyDeleteCo-starring Rand Paul as Fakin.
ReplyDeleteOr his daddy, or, fuck, any of 'em...
"the Republican Party is merely the 'outer defenses' for the Democrat Party"
ReplyDeleteAs Capt of the Guard here at Castle MacReid, I say welcome! Our moat could use some snakes in it. Jump right in!
Problem is, in a party composed of nothing but straight (white) men, who's gonna deliver it? Best they can do is one of 'em slips on a banana and they call it good...
ReplyDeleteThey'll blame the Northern Aggressors, but take it out on their own...
ReplyDeleteThad Cochran has been in office since 1978, and I can't recall him doing
ReplyDeleteanything historically noteworthy, politically daring, or even amusing
during that time. Until this most recent flare-up, I had kinda forgotten
he was there.
Truly, now, how many Mississippians who don't read the poliblogs even know Cochran is their senator?
27.9% of those who do think it's Johnnie Cochran.
ReplyDeleteSo his family had a stump-broke cow? Jesus, this is fuckin' Mississippi, fercrapsake. The Governor's mansion probably had one in a special barn out back well into the 20th century. At *least* the 20th...
ReplyDeleteTime to reboot the Tootsie Pop commercial.
ReplyDelete"Mr. Owl, how many pigs do you hafta fuck to get to the inner circle of the conservative movement?"
"One-ah, t-who, thrrreee!"
Rightwingrish
ReplyDeleteheh.
you need to get a hold of yourself.
ReplyDeleteThese guys have a hard time letting a-loose of themselves, IYKWIMAITYD...
Could this be the new incarnation of Going Galt?
ReplyDeleteGoing Garcia?
The Bad Burritos of American politics...
ReplyDeleteThe basic grift cycle is that she talks up the next election as being Crucial 4 'Merica
ReplyDeleteAnd that's what Princess Dumbass is, Crude Shill For America...
It would take a little work, but you could probably sell enough copper "chemtrail absorbing bracelets" to endow another fucked up American religion.
ReplyDelete